November 24, 2018

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Mississippi is most likely going to elect this daughter of the Confederacy to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday in her runoff with Democrat Mike Espy. Cindy Hyde-Smith is a horrible human being and will almost certainly be a source of embarrassment for Mississippi as soon as she takes office.

A couple of weeks ago Hyde-Smith was caught on video saying she would “be on the front row” if a constituent asked her to go to “a public hanging,” a comment derided by politicians of all stripes.

Source: Jackson Free Press

JACKSON, Miss. — U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith attended and graduated from a segregation academy that were set up so that white parents could avoid having to send their children to schools with black students, a yearbook reveals.

A group photo in the 1975 edition of The Rebel—the Lawrence County Academy Yearbook—illustrates the point. High-school cheerleaders smile at the camera as they lie on the ground in front of their pom-poms, fists supporting their heads. In the center, the mascot, dressed in what appears to be an outfit designed to mimic that of a Confederate general, offers a salute as she holds up a large Confederate flag.

Third from the right on the ground is a sophomore girl with short hair, identified in the caption as Cindy Hyde.

The photo, and the recently appointed Republican senator’s attendance at one of the many private schools that was set up to bypass integration, adds historic context to comments she made in recent weeks about a “public hanging” that drew condemnations from across the political spectrum.

Lawrence County Academy opened in the small town of Monticello, Miss., about 60 miles south of Jackson, in 1970. That same year, another segregation school, Brookhaven Academy, opened in nearby Lincoln County. Years later, Hyde-Smith would send her daughter, Anna-Michael, to that academy.

Mike Espy's new ad is a blunt assessment of this woman and what she brings to the table for Mississippi, as she perpetuates the stereotype of that state.

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